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DOuble chapters cause i was supposed to post yesterday but i was dead tired, enjoy.
The Suggestion of Strength
The discovery was a key turning in a lock I hadn't known existed. My world, which had been rigidly divided into the powerful Dreaming and the powerless Waking, now had a permeable membrane. A tiny, treacherous, exhilarating leak.
I became a scientist in my own quiet laboratory—the backyard, my room, the park. My experiments were small, painstaking, and utterly secret. I learned to hold the connection to the Dreaming like a faint hum in the back of my skull, a radio tuned to a station only I could hear. The world of objects sang a constant, low song of purpose, and I was learning the language.
A pebble dreamed of being 'still.' I could suggest it dream of being 'slightly more still,' and a gust of wind that would have blown it away seemed to part around it.A dying flower in my mother's vase dreamed of its past vibrancy. I couldn't reverse its death, but I could suggest it dream of *holding on* for one more day, and its petals would defy their wilting curve for a few extra hours.A stuck drawer in my father's desk dreamed of friction and resistance. I suggested it dream of the 'smooth slide' it had known when new, and for a moment, the jam would release with a sigh.
The cost was always there, a tax paid in focus and a dull, familiar throb behind my eyes. I learned my limits the hard way. Trying to suggest a large rock dream of being 'light' sent me to my knees with a nosebleed that scared my mother and earned me another trip to the doctor, who again found nothing. The bigger the object, or the more drastic the suggestion against its nature, the higher the cost. I was a child trying to steer a ocean liner with a canoe paddle; subtlety was my only tool.
This was my hidden life. To the outside world, I was just Arata, the quiet, Quirkless boy who preferred reading to running. My parents, bless them, had fully embraced this identity. Our outings were to historical sites and quiet arboretums. My father bought me complex model kits, praising my patience and steady hands. My mother enrolled me in a art class, where my ability to focus for hours on a single drawing was seen as a testament to my concentration, not the side-effect of a mind accustomed to cosmic-scale focus.
I accepted it all. Their love was my anchor. Their version of me was a comfortable disguise.
The playground, however, remained the one place where the disguise felt thinnest. The other children's Quirks were growing stronger, more defined. The games became more exclusionary, the line between Quirked and Quirkless more starkly drawn. I was a ghost at the feast of their burgeoning power.
I kept to my bench, a book my shield. But I watched. I saw the social hierarchies solidify. Riku, the speedster, was now a ringleader, his confidence boosted by his power. Yumi, the telekinetic, was his lieutenant. And then there was Kenji.
Kenji was a new boy, small for his age with wide, nervous eyes. His Quirk had manifested late, and it wasn't a flashy one. He could make his skin temporarily as rough and textured as sandpaper. It was a defensive power, unheroic and strange. The other children didn't know what to make of him. They called him "Pumice" and "Sandboy," the names not meant with malice, but with a casual cruelty that stung more. He was relegated to the edges of games, an oddity.
I saw myself in him. Not the hidden power, but the isolation. The feeling of being outside the narrative.
One afternoon, a game of tag escalated. Riku, flushed with victory and unchecked energy, decided Kenji would be his new target. "Let's see if I can slip on you, Sandboy!" he yelled, zipping toward him.
Kenji flinched, his skin instinctively roughening into a protective, gritty layer. He looked terrified, humiliated, rooted to the spot.
Riku lunged. It wasn't meant to be truly harmful, just another show of dominance. But his speed was unpredictable. His foot caught on an uneven patch of asphalt just as he reached Kenji. He stumbled, his controlled lunge becoming a genuine fall. His hand, outstretched to shove Kenji's shoulder, was now headed directly for Kenji's face.
It was going to hurt. It was going to be a bloody nose, tears, and another layer of humiliation for the boy who was already trying to disappear.
I didn't think of the cost. I didn't think of my rules. My book fell to the ground.
My consciousness dipped into the Dreaming, not to the world of objects, but to the world of the self. To Kenji. I couldn't touch his Quirk. That was a part of his waking body, outside my domain. But I could touch his dream-self. The part of him that was in my kingdom every night.
His dream at that moment was a screaming vortex of fear and shame, a mirror of his waking panic.
I didn't have time to build a fortress. I didn't have time for subtlety. I acted on instinct, pouring a single, focused command into the heart of his terror, a command that was less a suggestion and more a desperate, borrowed truth.
'STRONG.'
In the waking world, Kenji's eyes, screwed shut in anticipation of the blow, flew open. His small body, which had been cringing, suddenly straightened. His shoulders went back. The fear on his face didn't vanish, but it was joined by something else—a shock of defiant confusion. It was as if he'd just heard a shout of encouragement from a voice he trusted implicitly.
He didn't move away. He braced.
Riku's hand smacked into Kenji's sandpaper-rough shoulder. There was a sound like scraping concrete. Riku yelped, jerking his hand back and staring at the red, abraded skin on his palm.
Kenji stood his ground, rocking back slightly but not falling. He looked down at his own shoulder, then at Riku's hurt hand, his own fear replaced by stunned disbelief.
The playground fell silent.
"You… you hurt me!" Riku accused, more surprised than angry, cradling his hand.
"You… you fell," Kenji said, his voice small but clear.
The moment hung in the balance. The teacher, alerted by Riku's yelp, started over. The spell broke. Riku was led away to have his hand cleaned, shooting a look of pure bewilderment at Kenji.
The other children stared at Kenji with new, uncertain eyes. His Quirk wasn't cool. It was still weird. But it wasn't harmless. It had a edge. It could *hurt back*.
Kenji didn't become popular that day. But the taunting stopped. He was left alone. He stood there for a long moment, looking at the spot where Riku had been, a faint, puzzled frown on his face. He touched his own shoulder, as if feeling for something that wasn't there.
The cost for me was immense. The world greyed out at the edges. A torrential headache, the worst I'd ever had, slammed into my skull with the force of a physical blow. I tasted metal. I bent over, pretending to tie my shoe, my vision swimming. I had not just suggested; I had *commanded*. I had poured raw power into a waking mind, and the backlash had nearly shattered my own.
But I had done it. I had changed something.
Later, as the children were being picked up, Kenji lingered near the gate. I was sitting on my bench, waiting for my mother, my head still pounding.
He walked over to me. He didn't say anything for a moment, just scuffed his shoe on the path.
"That was weird," he finally said, not looking at me.
I stayed silent, my heart hammering.
"When Riku fell…," he continued, his voice low. "For a second, I didn't feel scared. I felt… like I could stand there. Like I was… you know. Strong."
He finally looked at me, his eyes searching my face for an answer I could never give.
"Weird," he repeated, and then he walked away to his waiting mother.
I sat there, the pain in my head receding slightly, replaced by a cold, sobering understanding. I had crossed another line. I had not just manipulated objects; I had influenced a person's will. Directly. I had reached into Kenji's mind and given him a courage that wasn't his own.
It was a violation. A benevolent one, perhaps, but a violation nonetheless. Where was the line? Could I soothe a hero's nightmare? Yes. Could I command a frightened boy to stand his ground? Apparently, yes. What was the difference? Consent? Scale?
The power was seductive. It whispered of all the good I could do. I could make the bullied brave. I could make the hesitant certain. I could be the unseen wind at the back of every good intention.
But at what cost? To them? To me?
I had thought my greatest challenge was hiding my power from the world. I was wrong. My greatest challenge was going to be hiding it from myself. From the part of me that saw a problem and ached to fix it with a thought.
I was not a hero. I was something far more dangerous. I was a suggestion. And I had to be very, very careful what I suggested next.
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added two more chapters to the patreon